


Madness in my Soul

by likebunnies



Category: Sleepy Hollow (TV)
Genre: Angst, Comfort/Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Friends to Lovers, POV Alternating, POV First Person, Partners to Lovers, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Smut, post-episode s03ep10, totally platonic in an ironic way
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-15
Updated: 2016-02-15
Packaged: 2018-05-20 19:44:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,930
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6022477
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/likebunnies/pseuds/likebunnies
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Abbie's recovery may not be so simple but together, she and Crane begin to get through it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Madness in my Soul

**Author's Note:**

> I was experimenting with first person POV. I shouldn't say experimenting. I used to write in that all the time but I wanted that immediacy for this story. This deals with some of the PTSD problems Abbie could possibly be going through after spending 10 months alone. Hopefully the writers on the show will deal with that because it would have to be terrifying and traumatic.

^*^*^*^*^*^*

I can't sleep. I should be able to sleep. I haven't slept in months. My room is cool and dark and I pull a pillow over my face. I breathe in deep and try to count sheep and wonder why my pillow smells like Crane and I count more goddamn sheep. I'm so scared that if I close my eyes, it will all be gone. I will open them and be back there and I can't _BE BACK THERE._ I can't do it. I'm so restless and I fling the pillow off my face and count how long I breathe in and breathe out and count the minutes that pass as I watch my ceiling and then my walls. 

I might not be there anymore, in that faraway realm, but my mind still is. The hours... oh, the endless, painful hours of nothingness. The thoughts I had of home and of Jenny and Crane and just to be in my bed and now I'm here and the hours are over and yet, new hours have just begun. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.

I can't stay like this. I want to run. I want to fly. I have to get out of here and as far away from THERE as I can. This is too close. What if it drags me back in? What if Pandora figures out how to trap me there forever? What if she separates Crane from me again? What if... what the fuck if so many things, right? If I run, if I go... but I can't leave him again. I can't do it. 

It's settled then. He has to come with. 

I get out of bed and quickly get dressed, pulling on a t-shirt and my favorite pair of clean black jeans – he did my laundry while I was gone – and lacing up my boots. I grab a jacket, put some clothes in a travel bag and head out of my room to his door, knocking on it. 

“Lieutenant, are you ill? Is anything wrong?” he asks, opening the door before I can knock a third time. He's only half-dressed, wearing some flannel pajama bottoms and nothing more and I can feel his eyes travel over me. “Are you leaving?”

“No, we are. Get dressed. Pack a bag. I'll be downstairs.”

“May I inquire where we're going at 3 o'clock in the morning?” he asks. 

“I don't know but I can't stay here. Either get dressed and come with or wait for me to come home. Your choice,” I say to stop all his questions. I know he'll follow me. I know he always will. Turning away from him, I start down the stairs and can hear him quickly pulling on his clothing. 

“I thought you'd want to do nothing more than sleep after your experience,” Crane says, following me into the kitchen, his boots in one hand and a small bag in the other. “I didn't think you'd be awake again for days.”

I look at him, his sympathetic eyes meeting mine and I don't even know how to explain this to him. “I can't stay here. I can't. Not tonight. I don't know when but...”

“I understand,” he says, though I'm not sure he does. He leans against the counter and somehow manages to get his boots on. “Are you driving or am I?”

I hand him the keys to my SUV and he follows me to the door. “Just take me anywhere but here,” I say, walking out of my house and into the night. 

^*^*^*^*^*^*

I should have known it wouldn't be as easy as bringing her home and feeding her a cheeseburger and fries and tucking her in bed. I have been through my fair share of harrowing experiences from the battlefield to digging myself out of my own grave a few times to this last one where my soul was set free but none of those compared to what the Lieutenant has been through. Nothing could compare to the maddening emptiness and loneliness she suffered. First I left her in purgatory. Now it took me too long to find her and help her escape from this. In the end, she had to save herself... and me. 

She continually changes the music playing on the radio, never settling on anything. She switches it off and then turns it right back on, finally sitting back in her seat and pulling at the seat belt, unable to get comfortable. I start to ask her something but she turns her head to look out the window. 

Earlier, I had meant to tell her how much I missed her and how much I needed her but the time wasn't right, not with her sister and Master Corbin standing by, listening so eagerly. Maybe telling her would have made a difference. Maybe not. I look over at her once more, sitting in the passenger seat, body as tense as a soldier seeing battle for the first time. I would have thought her battle was over but perhaps it is just beginning. 

Now comes the healing. She and I rarely take the time to heal. Not after I crawled out of that first grave, not after her Sheriff Corbin died. I tried after Katrina... but I just brought more tragedy upon us. It is impossible to heal in this endless cycle of war and death and then living again. It truly would have been better for me to have been left in that first grave, never knowing about all of this. But then, I wouldn't know her. 

I don't know how far I'll have to drive until she feels safe but I will do it. Maybe she will never feel safe again and we will just turn around and go back home to whatever frightens her most. My heart breaks for her and I would willing take on all her pain. Instead, I just drive faster into the night.

^*^*^*^*^*^*

The morning sun is now up, warming the sky with pinks and oranges. I turn to Crane and he looks exhausted, but he would never ask to stop. I know he would fall asleep behind the wheel first if he thought that's what I needed. It's not. I just needed to escape Sleepy Hollow and all its horrors. 

“Where are we?” I ask, playing with the built-in GPS neither of us bothered to turn on until now. 

“I believe we are in Pennsylvania,” Crane answers before the electronic voice asks for a destination. I have none. Just... away from where I was. I wonder what direction she'd give for that? I've already been to hell and back. Where else could she send me? 

“You need sleep,” I say, looking at him. He still has bed head from when I woke him earlier and his eyes look like they are ready to close any minute now. 

“And so do you, Lieutenant,” he admonishes. 

“I don't know if I can.” 

“I understand,” he says once more. He is holding tight to the steering wheel and concentrating hard on all the cars filled with commuters starting to make their way to work. We need to stop so he can rest. 

“Listen, Crane, when you see an exit with a hotel, just get off there and I'll get us a couple of rooms. I'm assuming my credit cards are still good?” I ask, forgetting that I've only really been gone for a few weeks. 

“I fear the FBI has been following the activity on them. They thought I had committed some atrocious crime against you and Agent Reynolds made me a “person of interest.” Unless you reported to him that you have returned safe and sound, anything will be suspicious,” he says and I continue to stare at him. Danny thought Crane was capable of killing me? On purpose? I'm going to have to set him straight about a few things. 

“Good thing I always carry enough cash for an emergency,” I say, reaching for my bag by my feet. “Not that cash gets us out of most of our emergencies lately but this time it will help.”

I wish I would start to feel weary instead of just wired. Crane exits the interstate and pulls into the parking lot of some dive hotel that I'm sure sees more hourly or noontime business than anything else. I don't really care. This isn't for me, it's for him. Maybe I'll never be able to sleep again. Maybe that will the be the real hell I'll have to endure. 

^*^*^*^*^*^*

There is barely enough time for me to finish taking a shower and dry off with a piece of fabric that might have been considered a towel at one time before someone is knocking at the door. 

“Yes?” I call out, looking through the peephole and seeing nothing but the back of the Lieutenant's head and her curly hair. She turns around, holding up several bags of food and a cup of coffee. “Just a moment. I have to... just a moment.”

I hurry to pull on my breeches and open the door for her and she moves past me like a unexpected current in an otherwise quiet stream. “I thought you could use something to eat before you fell asleep.”

“Thank you, Lieutenant,” I say as she sets the bags of food on the rickety hotel room table. She doesn't sit on one of the chairs covered in some mysterious green plastic material but continues to pace around, her eyes darting everywhere. I take a breakfast sandwich out of the bag and offer it to her but she shakes her head and then goes back to pacing. I unwrap it and start to eat as she begins to talk, asking me things but never giving me the time to answer. Does she think she's back in that cave? Alone with only me in her mind? She spins around and looks at me, almost startled that I'm actually here. I point at the chair opposite of me and demand, “Sit down, Lieutenant, _and talk to me_.” 

She does what I ask but instead of taking the chair, she sits on top of the battered dresser, her back against the mirror. And even there, she keeps fidgeting with something. Her fingernails. The end of her hair. Some imaginary blemish on the skin on her forearm. 

“I can't get used to being back here, Crane. I can't get used to the smell of food. The changes in light. I can't get used to the fact that you really exist and aren't just in my head. I am certain if I close my eyes, it's all going to go away. I will open them again and I'll be back there. You'll be gone. It will all be gone,” she says. She might laugh nervously when she's done talking, but there is a tear running down her cheek. It's a moment of weakness she would normally hide from everyone, including me. She wipes it away as quickly as she can but the tiny track it made down her face isn't as easy to erase. 

I go to her, stand before her, and take one of her small hands in both of mine. I caress the smooth skin on her arm as I watch a million emotions work themselves out upon her beautiful face. A part of me wants to say something that will make her laugh but this isn't the time to brush everything she's feeling – that I'm feeling – away with laughter. 

“It wasn't that long ago, Lieutenant, that you told me you weren't going anywhere. I'm not going anywhere, either. Our bond is stronger than death and other realms and dimension. There is nothing anyone can do to us to break us apart. I assure you I will follow you for all eternity,” I say. She looks up at me, her eyes still haunted by everything that happened to her. It will take a long time for that look to go away. 

Pulling her hand from mine, she rests her cheek against my bare chest and the feel of her skin and the scent of her hair is everything I have begged the heavens for over the last few weeks. I kiss the top of her head and she wraps her arms around my waist, holding me as if I am the anchor keeping her in this existence. Perhaps I am. 

^*^*^*^*^*^*

He feeds me part of an egg and cheese Croissan'wich and doesn't let me touch any coffee though after all these months, coffee sounds wonderful. While I eat, he always has one of his hands somewhere on me, whether on my arm or my knee, never breaking contact for a second. It's warm and relaxing and with that touch, I can feel the need to flee from here slowly start to fade. 

“Tell me again how you and Agent Foster somehow ended up saving Danny's life?” I ask. I don't really need to hear the story again but as long as he keeps talking to me, I'm not alone. 

“I already told you that tortuous tale twice now. Wouldn't you rather hear how I almost burned down your kitchen?” he asks with an enchanting, boyish smile that makes me want to forgive him for whatever he did to my house before he even confesses. 

“I just want to hear your voice,” I say, resting my hand on his cheek. A brief flash of embarrassment passes over his face and his eyes dart away before meeting my eyes again. How many days did I try to remember this exact shade of blue? I'm not sure my brain ever imagined the color his eyes are right now. 

“You rest, Lieutenant, and I will tell you so many stories while you do so, you will feel like Scheherazade is now your roommate,” he says. 

“Can I try to sleep here?”

“I will go wherever you are most comfortable and I will talk to you until you inform me that I am no longer needed,” he says. His room is no different than mine so I curl up on one side of the double bed and he sits beside me, his back against the headboard, holding one of my hands in his. 

“I think you'll always be needed, Crane,” I say, starting to feel a weariness come over me. 

“I'm most pleased to hear that. Now then, back to your house and my cooking. It does seem that certain items are not meant to be cooked over an open flame...”

“Crane?” I say, looking up at him. 

“Yes?”

“In order for me to maintain whatever is left of my sanity, perhaps you would like to tell a different story? One where I don't have to worry about my homeowner's insurance,” I say. He assures me nothing was damaged before he kisses the back of my hand and starts to tell a story about some of the spies he had worked with back during the war. Not that Crane's stories are boring, but I could feel my eyelids finally begin to get heavy after an hour or so. 

^*^*^*^*^*^*

As soon as I cease talking and begin to drift to sleep, she wakes, startled and panicked, calling my name into the darkness. I pull her closer to me and assure her I've gone nowhere but she is not satisfied until I have switched on the lamp next to me and it flickers slowly to life. 

“Crane,” she says again, but softly and with a sad hitch in her voice. Then the tears start. Not just a single tear she can wipe away without anyone noticing but choking sobs like a lost child. I bundle her up in my arms as she continues to cry against my chest and I want to cry, too, but instead I offer her soothing words as I hold her. 

“Lieutenant, we will get through this,” I tell her but I know she's going to need more help than I'll ever be able to offer her. At least in this day and age, such help is available and she will not have to suffer from this trauma until she can no longer take it. I will not lose her to this. I will not let that happen. I will follow her into this hell, too, and help her in any way I can. 

Her tears abate and she pulls her damp face away from my chest and rests on her pillow so her face is now next to mine. I wipe away the remaining tears with the edge of my thumb and lean in to kiss her on the forehead. Only it doesn't end up that way. Our lips meet and it's shocking and sweet and... wet. I have thought of kissing her a million times but not once did I imagine we'd be in bed together in some rundown hotel off a busy interstate in Pennsylvania. Not once. 

I know I should stop. I know this is just her need to feel connected to the real world. To be sure I'm still beside her and not adrift in a dark, cold place again. I can't stop. The hollow ache that has been with me since all I could do was follow the sound of her voice is being replaced by a blazing fire consuming all other thoughts. She is on me. She is over me. She is telling me to keep talking but I can't come up with any words. 

“I want this, Ichabod. Not just because of what happened and what I'm going through now that I'm back. I wanted this so much when I was stuck there... some days the thought of you... of us doing this was all that kept me from going insane,” she whispers to me before kissing me again. Her tongue is what is driving me insane and it's been so long and I want her more than I've ever wanted anything in my life. 

“Abbie, my Abbie,” I mumble as she sits up, straddling my hips. She tugs off her shirt and I help as much as I can but every move she makes against my cock is enough to send me over the edge. I can't allow that. Not so soon. I close my eyes and think of that void again, and when I open them, her breasts are free from her undergarments and the curls of her hair hang just perfectly and I cannot believe I will ever be worthy of this privilege. I reach up and feel the soft roundness of her breasts in each of my hands and they are as exquisite as she is when she leans into my touch. 

We fumble around as she finishes getting undressed and I race to unbutton my breeches and to be free of them. She mumbles something about not having a razor for ten months and doing the best job she could tidying things up when she took a bath at home but I have no clue what she is even trying to tell me. There could never be anything ever wrong with her perfect body. 

She is on her back beside me and I cannot look at her enough. My fingertips trace her curves from her breasts and over her abdomen until I sink my hand between her legs and feel the heat and wetness there. Moaning, she arches into my touch and I can barely breathe as I experiment to find what she likes best. It's all going so fast and I pray that this isn't the only time this will ever happen. I want to explore every part of her for as long as we both are alive. Within a matter of minutes, her breathing changes and she grabs my hand with one of hers as she comes. Her entire body spasms and she cries out my name as if I'm lost again. 

In one smooth motion, she pulls me between her thighs, and her hand goes between our bodies to guide me into hers. The look in her eyes as I enter her is enough to make me never want to leave this bed again. I do not know how I will ever be able to stand not being by her side for a minute from now on. It will be unbearable. 

^*^*^*^*^*^*

Crane is over me and inside of me and this is not necessarily what I had planned when I told him he was coming with me on this journey but I have never felt more complete than I do right now. I have also never felt more safe and grounded. This isn't some quick fuck out of desperation. We are a team. We are best friends. We are Witnesses. We share a bond unlike any other. And we are now lovers. None of those are more important than another. None mean anything without the others. 

I wrap my legs around his waist and gently remind him that he can move. Please, please move. He does, and I wrap my fingers into his hair as I pull him down for a quick kiss. My hands travel from his hair to his face and then across his shoulders and down to the muscles in his arms straining to hold himself above me. So much of him I've barely even seen before that I now get to touch and hold on to. 

He is mine and I am his. It was never going to end any other way. 

“Abbie, I have to...” he starts to say as he tries to pull out and away from me. I don't let him. Here's hoping my birth control really does last five years no matter what realm of existence I'm in. 

“I want you to come inside of me,” I say, not sure why I'm asking this of him except for the fact that I don't want to lose this close human contact just yet. “You can. It's okay.” 

A few more thrusts of his hips and he's coming, his arms finally giving out as he falls down upon me. I run my fingers through his hair once more, damp now with sweat, and whisper things to him that I'm too scared to say loud enough for the rest of the world to hear yet. 

“I love you, too,” he says, rolling beside me and tucking me in his embrace. “I don't know if I can stay awake much longer, Lieutenant, but I will if you need me to. I will do anything you need of me.” 

He sounds so exhausted but I know he's telling the truth. Crane would run with me to the ends of the earth if that's what I needed right now. If that's what I asked him to do. 

“Sleep now. We both need to sleep,” I say, trying to convince myself that I also need to close my eyes and face whatever dreams may come. That I will be safe with him here beside me. 

“I will be right here, Abbie, and I will follow you anywhere. You have to know that no truer words have ever been spoken,” he says, his voice sleepy as he once again wraps his fingers around mine. “You will always be the queen to my knight. Always.” 

I feel his breathing pattern start to change as he drifts off to sleep. I stare at the ordinary beige walls around me, not yet able to sleep but quite sure I will never be alone in my sleeplessness again. 

^*^*^*^*^*^*

The End


End file.
